Media watchdog Howard Kurtz’s latest column for “The Daily Beast” illustrates how tricky achieving both objective and accurate journalism can be difficult, and sometimes impossible.

Examining Fox’s coverage of the health care reform debate, he discloses that after Republican pollster Frank Luntz tipped off Fox Tea Party booster and talking head Sean Hannity that the public was favorable to something called “the public option.” but suspicious of the same provision when it was referred to as “the government option.” Shortly thereafter, when the Senate Democrats introduced a health care bill with a public insurance option, Fox News vice president and Washington managing editor Bill Sammon sent the news  staff a memo:

“Please use the term ‘government-run health insurance,’ or, when brevity is a concern, ‘government option,’ whenever possible,” the memo said.  It added that since the phrase “public option” was “firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon,” so when it was necessary to use it, add the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.” And “here’s another way to phrase it: ‘The public option, which is the government-run plan.’”

Kurtz is critical of Fox and Sammon, condemning this as an attempt to slant coverage and undermine the health care bill by innuendo. But is a responsible reporter required to use the euphemisms crafted by advocates on either side of an issue to mislead the public? Later, as Kurtz reports, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to promote the government-run health care insurance plan as the “consumer option.” Would Sammon have been “spinning” to resist that, a transparent effort to hide the ball if there ever was one?

It would be a responsible policy for all news organizations to refuse to adopt advocaty packaging when it involves mischaracterizing or hiding a key element in a debate. “Affirmative action” is a misleading label, for example, since the term intentionally omits the little detail that it requires racial or other preferences, which most Americans don’t regard as fair. “Racial quotas” is similarly misleading, because it emphasizes the negative aspect of the same policy. “Pro choice” vs. “pro abortion,” “torture” vs “enhanced interrogation,”—in all these cases and more the news media’s obligation and objective should be to explain the issue, and if that means rejecting the descriptions advocates and their pollsters wand the public to hear, too bad. “Public option” is a vague term designed to mislead the public, and government option is clearly a fairer term.

Nevertheless, Kurtz’s verdict on Fox is correct. The network didn’t ban the use of “public option” just to be clearer, it banned it to help erode support for the health care reform bill. In this case, integrity is everything. If Fox News routinely avoided misleading labels and euphemisms for the  illumination of its viewers, then Sammon’s memo would be laudable. Fox always used “enhanced interrogation,” however; it has no principled objection to misleading America when the network approves of the agenda behind the deceit. In the case of “public option,” it chose the right course for an unethical reason.